Category Archives: photos

fresh homemade pasta

our first attempt at homemade pasta and it was a terrific success. it’s much easier than i thought it would be. i have to say that i am less afraid of dough, now that i make bread. dough can be intimidating but is much more forgiving than expected.

we formed the first batch in a ninja and i forgot to add the eggs before i added the water and EVO. it was a crumbly dry mess. mp took it out, added some water and i kneaded it according to giada’s instructions. in the fridge it goes anyway because i want to see if it is any good.

we formed the second batch in mp’s tiny 3-cup blender/food processor and after a lot of scraping and mixing, it came together. i forgot to set a timer so i’m not sure it rested a full 30 minutes, but it came close.

as for the pasta roller, i flattened the doughs by hand and then we started on setting 1 and worked our way up to 5 for the pappardelle and 4 for the fettuccine. m wanted the pappardelle thick; as it turns out, 5 was probably even a wee bit too thick still. i would use a floured pizza peel next time, maybe, because the rolled pasta almost exceeded my arm span at setting 5. the pappardelle cooked for about 4 minutes and the fettuccine only needed 2.

using a couple scoops of sauce and a scoop of pasta water, m quickly mixed the 2 together and voila! tasty fresh pasta!

garden update

rachael

i can’t remember what brought me to rachael yamagata’s web site a few weeks ago, but somehow i got there and i discovered she’s touring. not just touring. she’s touring in los angeles. at an intimate venue in hollywood called hotel cafe. and she opened up a 1030 late show to accommodate more fans. we snatched up the late show tickets as quickly as possible.

her concert was last night, and (here i have to give myself props…) thanks to my paranoid, obsessive personality, i made m and lcr get to the venue early so we weren’t stuck standing in the back with me surrounded by 6-foot tall people and getting elbowed in the eyes. i was able to secure 2 chairs at the very front of the stage. OMG. it was awesome! i stood for 3 hours but didn’t even mind. we stood right next to the bass speaker but didn’t even mind. she was a bit drunk, very very funny, and awesome in person. the raspy voice, her sense of humor, the awesome piano and emo music. the show ended at 1 sharp; we stayed up until 3am listening to music and talking even though we all had commitments in the morning.

i only took a handful of photos because i’m a chickens**t, but thankfully my appreciation and enjoyment of the concert didn’t rest on how many pictures i took. i woke up giddy despite only getting 3.5 hours of sleep and having a headache and burping up garlic wings from last night’s dinner.

rachael at hotel cafe

rachael yamagata at hotel cafe

anna

look how dark she was! we thought she might have pointy dingo ears, but they became floppy instead.